Winter is finally over and in between the rain it’s actually warm again to
work on the old Morgan. Thought I’d bring you up to date on how the
three-wheeler is coming along. For those of you who came in late, we have
been totally rebuilding a ‘36 Super Sports for the last four years.
First off, the winters in Missouri were a lot colder than expected--guess we
got too used to the warm Texas weather. Secondly our garage is not heated.
Combining one and two and you wind up not making a lot of progress. My
ambitious plan to make a wiring harness this winter didn’t happen. I don’t
want to dwell on what didn’t get done so instead I’ll tell you what did get
accomplished.
For the first time in a long while the wings are now mounted on the chassis,
remember we bought our Morgan in pieces. Making the rear wing support tubes
wasn’t too difficult, got the S-bends right the first time. While trying to
align the exhaust cutouts on the wing valence the existing bolt hole on one
of the wings didn’t match up with the new upper wing/headlamp bracket and no
amount of adjustment seemed to work. Soon I realized a valence was attached
three fourth of an inch lower on one wing so there is no way it could line up
(great old world workmanship). Ended up drilling another hole in the
wing--going to use a torch, fill in the old hole and smooth it out.
The original color of our three-wheeler was green, so I purchased some paint
that’s pretty close to what was the proper shade of green. Gave the wings a
light sanding and sprayed them so we could better visualize the color and see
if we really like it. It’s kind of tough to see how a color will look on a
car by studying paint samples. We’ll leave the wings green for a while and
let the color choice sort of mature, if we don’t like it in a few months,
I’ll try another shade of green. Color selection is a big decision.
The hood frame and the two mounting brackets were made from scratch during
the winter. They're attached to the wood body. Also have affixed the oil
filter and coil to the body. The dynamo is mounted to the transmission.
The new ash wood body is now painted a semi-gloss black and have finally
started to route wires through it.
Cut out the dash board. It's Canary wood, a South American hard wood with
really great grain. Not original, but I like it.
Made a couple of metal pieces to fill the space between the floor under the
torque tube and a pattern for the mats.
Just finished redoing the white lettering and black background on the
lighting/charging switch.
Shortly it will be time for new pictures. Stay tuned for further adventures,
I mean progress.
Bert Varady
'36 SS w/MX2 engine
'91 4/4
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